February 14, 2017

Officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement canceled a meeting with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, including chairwoman Michelle Lujan Grisham, hours before it was scheduled to take place Tuesday.

CHC, which is made up of Democratic members, has been critical of ICE’s actions and President Donald Trump’s rhetoric towards those in the country illegally, both during his campaign and since becoming president.

After the cancellation of the meeting, several members, including Lujan Grisham, held a press conference.

Subscribe to our mailing list

Lujan Grisham said she spoke to ICE Acting Director Thomas Homan, who canceled the meeting after reaching out to Republican leadership.

“He confirmed that they reached out to Republican leadership in the House for a bipartisan meeting,” Lujan Grisham said.

An ICE representative speaking on background said the CHC added attendants to the meeting last minute, forcing the agency to reschedule to comply with House rules.

The attendees of the press conference, including House Minority Vice Chair Joe Crowley of New York, all said there was no such rule that meetings of a certain size had to be bipartisan.

Lujan Grisham said the CHC wanted the meeting to get answers.

“The request to have the meeting, of course, was to get real information, data, about who was apprehended, who was the target, where and to confirm that information without constituents for several reasons,” Lujan Grisham said. “Not the least of which is to make sure we’re following the law, that we’re clear people are getting their due process, that they know their rights, and that in fact we are not causing —which we are—fear and panic in our communities.”

This week, the media reported raids by ICE in several states throughout the country. None have been reported in New Mexico.

According to the Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, 680 people were arrested by ICE last week, and three-quarters of them were those with prior criminal convictions. ICE highlighted that some had committed serious crimes, such as homicide or sexual abuse.

According to NPR, the Department of Homeland Security, the agency responsible for ICE, would not say how many convictions were for serious crimes.

Lujan Grisham said it isn’t clear if all ICE offices are acting under the same orders.

“The discretion looks like it is not effectively administered so that it is uniform for one,” she said. “There is broad discretion from region to region, state to state, which is very problematic.”

Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois had harsh words for the recent actions.

“It seems to me, they came for the Muslims and we went to court, so now it’s the Mexicans,” he said. “And I say that in the broadest sense of the immigrant Latinos—but let’s face it, that’s where the bullseye is at.”

Related

More About

U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Luján, a Democrat, entering his sixth term in office, was unanimously elected the Assistant Democratic Leader for the next Congress. In a statement, Luján said he was “honored” to be selected for that position, which makes him the number four Democrat in the House.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus won’t stop its criticism of Donald Trump’s immigration policies. That’s the word from Michelle Lujan Grisham, the New Mexico lawmaker who heads the caucus, which is made up of Hispanic members of Congress from around the country.

When energy corporations produce oil, gas or coal on public lands, they make royalty payments to the federal government and the states where production takes place. In 2016, the Obama administration closed a loophole that allowed companies to dodge those fees.

This story was originally published by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit news organization based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Learn more at revealnews.org and subscribe to the Reveal podcast, produced with PRX, at revealnews.org/podcast.

Holtec International was in the news last month when the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission denied requests from some groups to hold an additional hearing over the company’s license to build an interim storage site in southeastern New Mexico to hold nuclear waste from commercial power plants.

Matthew Reichbach is the editor of the NM Political Report. The former founder and editor of the NM Telegram, Matthew was also a co-founder of New Mexico FBIHOP with his brother and one of the original hires at the groundbreaking website the New Mexico Independent. Matthew has covered events such as the Democratic National Convention and Netroots Nation and formerly published, “The Morning Word,” a daily political news summary for NM Telegram and the Santa Fe Reporter.
Matthew has appeared as a panelist for the Society of Professional Journalists’ New Mexico Chapter’s panel on covering New Mexico politics and the legislature.
A native New Mexican from Rio Rancho, Matthew’s family has been in New Mexico since the 1600s.